Rats in the Woodpile

There was a booming black market in unauthorized weapons in Vietnam, too. Any weapon that wasn't issued by Uncle was "unauthorized". But anyone who had regular contact with the ARVNs ( Army of Vietnam) knew you could get almost anything with a carton of cigarettes or two. Or a few cans of hair spray. Where do you get hairspray, you ask? At the Cholon PX. In 1966 the PX there sold enough hairspray to satisfy the needs of every women in the theater who was authorized to purchase it...100 times over. They imported enough Dupont plastic-soled Ho Chi Minh jump boots to shoe every local national in Southeast Asia with at least 20 pairs. It was much later discovered that the chemical make-up of the plastic-soled shoes was extremely close to a popular explosive of the realm and could be converted to same with a little work. I drift. My point being that there was a thriving black market in everything in Vietnam and you just had to find the right facilitator to make your purchases. My facilitator was my brother. He was a signal advisor with the ARVN 5th Cav out of Xuan Loc. My "Grease gun" cost me a couple cartons of cigarettes.

So what was unusual in this atmosphere was that one of the permanent guard detail had his parents mail him his .22 cal Colt Woodsman...and that it got through the mail without incident...complete with a huge box of shorts to go with it. Even by 1966 standards that was extremely illegal, I think. But it was a popular toy. Firing shorts through it was so quiet you couldn't even hear them at the front of the compound, even late at night. It sounded kinda like a slap or someone tapping in a nail.

Behind our compound was a lumber yard. Well, stacks of wood and some other building supplies. I never saw anyone in that yard the whole time I was there. But it was inhabited by the biggest rats I have ever seen. At night they came out and sat up on their hind legs and stared at the guards. I always thought they were VC rats probing for our weak spots. But inevitably, where a Woodsman and a rat occupy adjacent space, there will be shots fired. It was kind of a long reach, especially with .22 shorts, but with careful aim and a good supported firing position, some of us got pretty good at hitting the rats. When the first one got hit, the rest would scatter. But they would come back shortly and eat the fallen comrade. They carried fleas that carried disease and they were RATS so if you are inclined to scold for cruelty and inhumane behavior, go comment to someone who cares.

The oddest thing about this sport was the rats' reaction to getting hit. A hard point hit produced a lot of momentum transfer and sent them flying. But a soft tissue hit was almost comical;  the rat would grab the wound with its two little front paws (looking a lot like hands) and stagger around and finally flop over. It was like Jimmy Cagney doing a "dead gangster" scene. Sometimes it was very dramatic. We took turns plinking rats on bored evenings until the bosses got wind of it and naturally decided it wasn't safe or becoming to shoot rats late at night with a .22. So we had to quit. It only lasted for a few weeks. But upon finding the rats'  talent for death scenes, anyone who wanted to shoot had to preface each shot by saying, in their best Cagney, "Take that, you dirty rat!"